


to the sound of love

by butterflycrown



Category: Bandom, McFly
Genre: M/M, OT4
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-10
Updated: 2012-10-10
Packaged: 2017-11-16 00:32:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,455
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/533506
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/butterflycrown/pseuds/butterflycrown
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It doesn't take long from the moment McFly begins to the moment they start to fall in love with each other.</p>
            </blockquote>





	to the sound of love

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this before reading Unsaid Things, so forgive me for any inaccuracies!
> 
> This is entirely fictional and made up, and I am not profiting from this in any way. If you are any of the characters that this is about, please stop reading!

**i.**

Danny thinks Harry is a twat the first time he walks into the audition. It's the way he twirls his drumsticks, the way he scratches at his hair, the way his muscles ripple. He's too cocky, and for that matter too handsome, for his own good.

(Tom says they're just too similar and that's why they never talk, but what does Tom know, anyway? Nothing. Danny just doesn't talk to Harry because he's a twat.)

It's the little things that Harry does, every single day, that make Danny want to scream; he forces them to clean up, jokingly calls Tom a fatty, takes Dougie to a strip club, makes up his own drum lines. He doesn't seem to care about Danny's opinion, ever, and it makes Danny want to pull on his stupid hair and punch him in his stupid muscles and (sometimes) kiss his stupid mouth, just to shut him up.

(Tom says they have to talk because they're ruining the creative process, whatever _that_ means, and Dougie just looks at him meaningfully as Tom pulls him out the door, and Danny feels fucking ganged up on.)

Five seconds later, Harry's rhythmic footsteps enter the room and Danny refuses to meet his eyes. This might be the first time they've ever been alone.

"Where's Dougie?" he asks in his stupid posh voice, and Danny doesn't want to respond, knowing that his Northern accent will sound too big, and too loud, and Harry will look at him the same stupid way that Harry always looks at him.

"Tom took 'im out," he mutters, and Harry nods. He's bouncing on the balls of his feet, up and down, pent-up energy flowing through him and out the fingers that tap against his thigh, _one-two-three four, one-two-three four_.

Danny's heart starts beating loud and he thinks that since Harry's a drummer he can probably hear it, but Harry isn't even looking at him, he's looking at the flickering lights of the TV, and they're casting shadows on his face, and Danny thinks that despite the stupid hair he's kind of fucking beautiful and maybe they could play football together sometime.

Harry glances at him, at the way Danny is staring, and he looks him up and down. "What?" he asks, and Danny shrugs.

"Nothing," he drawls, and moves over on the couch. "Come watch, Judd," and it's an apology without Danny having to say anything, and Harry understands because he does that, too. They're different but kind of the same, like black and white meeting and becoming grey, and they look at each other, sizing each other up, and it's good.

 

**ii.**

Harry is pulled into Dougie's gravity the instant they meet, at that very first audition. He's a weird kid, but sweet and shy and innocent in the kind of way that makes Harry want to push him to his knees; instead, he smiles at him fondly, hugs him every change he can get. He wants the self-consciousness that furrows Dougie's brow to disappear, one day.

The others laugh at them for being so close, but it's different being the two new guys. They have to prove themselves, Dougie especially, and those first few weeks are hard for them; there's no one really to talk to except for each other. So they talk, a lot, and giggle at jokes the other lads don't get, and Tom says "I wish I was as close to a girl as you two are to each other," and they look at each other and laugh, even though it makes Harry wince.

Harry takes Dougie's easy smile so for granted that he forgets, sometimes, how young he really is. So he teaches him, how to shave (which is fucking hard, with Dougie so close to him, settling his hips heavy over the kid's thighs and focusing on anything but the warm rub of denim between them), how to talk to girls (which might be even harder), how to write a drum line, how to cook an omelette, and finally, on his sixteenth birthday, how to kiss.

There's something about Dougie that makes him awkward around girls, so he's never really talked to them; he's certainly never kissed one, and he tells Harry the night before his birthday that he doesn't want to turn sixteen without having been kissed.

"You're gonna have to," snorts Harry, rolling towards him in bed. Dougie's sleeping with him tonight, like he sometimes does, so that when the clock ticks its way into midnight he doesn't have to be alone.

It's 11:58.

Dougie looks at him. "Do I?" he questions, and Harry flicks his eyes towards the boy's lips.

"Yeah, you do," he states, more towards himself than towards Dougie.

They look at each other for a long moment and then Dougie glances behind him to the blinking red digits of the clock, smirks.

"Happy Birthday, me," he whispers, and Harry smiles, reaches out and tugs Dougie towards him.

"Happy Birthday," he mumbles, breath ghosting across Dougie's lips, and then their lips are sliding against each other languidly, messily; certainly not perfectly, but still. Dougie smiles against his mouth, and it's good.

**iii.**

Tom sees him, guitar slung across his back, and knows that he's different, different in that he's _normal_ and doesn't care. He doesn't need to be special, or smart; he just is, is comfortable in his own skin, and Tom wishes he could have the same easy confidence. And Danny teases him about his lisp but then apologizes, quickly, so Tom thinks, _he's good_. He's good.

They write songs together naturally, fluidly, as if they were meant to. Their brains are somehow in sync in a kind of beautiful way, and it comes out in their songs, in the way the music and the lyrics fit together. They fit together, Danny's smile and Tom's dimples, voices smooth and rough.

"D'you think I'm smart enough to understand the movie?" Danny asks him, head in his lap, and Tom laughs, hand coming up to awkwardly stroke hair out of his friend's eyes.

"You'll be fine," he reassures him, thinking that Danny should give himself more credit; really, he just wants to see Danny's grin, wide and unashamed.

Danny talks throughout the movie, ridiculous comments and even ridiculously smart comments, hair heavy and warm on Tom's thigh. His accent floats through the air, raspy but comforting, and Tom's torn between wanting him to shut up and wanting him to keep talking, forever. (He definitely wants to touch, to move his fingers through Danny's hair and to his lips, to his collarbone, to his chest, to count the freckles with his fingertips.)

After the credits roll Danny looks up at him, beams. "I understood it!" he exclaims; Tom lets his fingers slide along his cheekbone before he pulls back his hand.

"And what did you think?"

"We're naming our fucking band McFly, man!"

Danny's arms latch around his neck, and they're hugging, and it's weird because he's never been friends with a guy like this. Not just like _this_ , spending every minute of every day with each other, but _like_ this. Danny's not like Tom, not at all. He's one of the cool kids, at least to Tom, with a swagger and a smile, and Tom never really knows how to be around that kind of person but he knows how to be around Danny. It's instinct, or maybe fate, but whatever it is, it's good.

 

**iv.**

Danny claims he's not afraid of anything in life; he is, he just doesn't want to admit it. He's afraid of heights, and of spicy food, and he's really, really afraid of letting Dougie in the band. He knows they'e all young, but Dougie is _so_ young, so innocent, and it takes Tom days to convince him. Danny lets him in only on one condition: that they take care of him, all of them, that they don't let him become the next Robbie Williams.

But Tom is too busy, and Harry is, in his opinion, a bad influence, so it's up to Danny to take care of him, to have real responsibility for the first time in his life. (Harry does most of the work, of course, but Danny takes most of the credit.)

Sometimes Tom and Harry go out, to a bar or a club or a concert, and they ask him if he wants to go with them and he does, he really does, but this is his chance to be unselfish for once. So he stays home most of the time, except when he wants a quick lay, sits on the couch with Dougie and watches romcoms. Dougie's the one person who doesn't laugh at him when he cries, because Dougie's crying too. It's the only real time they spend together, watching girly movies, and it's a little bit weird because Danny's never sure how to act around him, whether he's allowed to swear or not. But soon they're having a night in every week, and soon they're cuddling on the couch, and soon Danny is tickling Dougie until he's hysterical, lying on top of him, tracing patterns across his back. Soon Danny is jealous of Harry every time they hug, soon Danny is looking at Dougie with an odd hunger in his eyes. Soon it's not a responsibility anymore.

"Dougs?" he asks as the credits to another horrible movie roll, fingers combing through the long bit of hair right behind Dougie's ear. "We should get tattoos together."

Dougie laughs that tinkly laugh of his, eyes crinkling. "I thought you wanted to protect me from all that mature stuff?"

Danny flinches even though he's not sure why, nods shakily. "Yeah, well. You don't have to, y'know. You can go out with the lads and me if you want, it's--"

"I want to stay here."

Danny grins, presses a wet kiss to his cheek and laughs. "That's why you're in the band, Poynter."

He wishes he could kiss him and mean it, someday, but for now they're here, curled up on the couch, and it's good.

 

**v.**

Tom is the boss, that's just the way it is. He's the one Dougie wants to impress the most, the one who's always too worried about everything. Dougie wants to be good for him, and maybe that'll take away one more worry.

But Tom isn't just the boss, he's the mother of them all, the one who turns Dougie into an adult; he's the rule-maker, and the confidant, and the glue that holds them together when nothing else can. So he gets Dougie a bank account, for all the money he promises they'll be making, lends him his hair straightener, calls him his boyfriend and watches as Dougie blushes a shy crimson. He lets him play his guitar, not his favourite one but his second favourite one, and Dougie tries _so hard_ to be good enough, not to be shit at it. He wants Tom to feels like he deserves it, being in this band; it's Tom's baby and he's trusted Dougie with it and he can't screw this up, the only thing he's got going for him.

He lets Tom push him around, sometimes, sometimes more than he should, because he knows that at the end of the day Tom will wrap an arm around him and whisper _good job_ and Dougie will light up inside.

And there are times when Tom calls Dougie into his room and shows him a song, or even just a fragment of a song, and asks his opinion. It makes him feel so fucking special, even when he has nothing to say, and Tom knows that and keeps doing it.

"Will people like us?" Dougie asks one day, as if Tom knows all the answers.

Tom looks up from his guitar, smiles in his knowing way. "Course," he tells him simply, fingers fluttering over the thick guitar strings. "Who wouldn't fall in love with you?"

And that's it, the courage Dougie needs to hum along, softly, as Tom caresses the notes to what he swears will be a number one; he feels like a star in Tom's eyes, not a rockstar but a real star, burning up in the infinity. They sing together gently, delicately, but Tom starts laughing the instant he meets Dougie's shining eyes and Dougie knows that it's good.

 

**vi.**

The first time they play, not just jamming together in their bedrooms but really play, on stage, in front of people who they know will like them, is fucking incredible. It's mostly covers because Tom is still too much of a perfectionist to declare any song really finished yet; still, it's amazing. Harry watches him from where he's perched in the back, the way Tom rocks back and forth over his guitar, hips following his movements, the way sweat rolls across his lips and slicks his hair, fading from brown to blonde like the sun rising, to his forehead. It's like everything he's done has been for this moment, and maybe it has.

He's caught watching Tom far too often, but Harry still looks. The drums ring tinny in his ears, his hands almost numb from the repetition. He can't look away, and he thinks that maybe it's important for people to look at Tom. He deserves to be looked at, to be told that no matter who's the most popular it's him who's the backbone of the band.

(The lights pulse, and the sweat runs salty across his lips, and still he stares.)

It's not until after the show that he can pull his eyes away, can realize what a fool he's just made of himself. His position in the band is risky enough, anyway, with Danny hating him and Dougie half in love with him, like he is with everyone.

Tom just looks at him, long and hard, and then shrugs. "Good show," he says; Harry wants to respond with something biting, sarcastic, something to negate all the stares, but resists.

"You too," he says, and they share a smile and a nod, and it's good.

 

**vii.**

This is how they are; this is their dynamic. It's all of them, best friends and sometimes more. It's the mornings when Danny will kiss Harry hard against the fridge, grin at Tom and then go run his hands through Dougie's hair; it's the afternoons when they get each other off for fun and the nights when it's more serious.

It's like their hearts beat in time, like the threads of the universe are gently pulling them together. Harry says it's fate, but whatever it is it brings something warm and comfortable to Dougie's chest.

It's something like love, and it's good.


End file.
